President

Kadir ÖZKAYA

Mr. Özkaya was born in 1963 in Tarsus. He studied at Bandırma Middle School, followed by the Land Registry and Cadastre Vocational High School. He graduated from the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Public Administration at Gazi University in 1985.

He began his professional career as a civil servant at the General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre and subsequently served as an inspector at the Agricultural Credit Cooperatives of Türkiye. After completing his administrative judge internship, which began on 4 February 1991, he was appointed as a rapporteur-judge at the Council of State on 13 May 1993, where he served until November 2004. On 21 October 2005, he was officially appointed as a rapporteur-judge at the Constitutional Court, a position he had been filling on a temporary basis since November 2004. While serving in this capacity, he was elected as a member of the Council of State by the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors in 2011, and subsequently appointed by the President as a Justice of the Constitutional Court on 18 December 2014, assuming his role on 22 December 2014.

In 2002, he completed the Public Administration Specialisation Programme at the Public Administration Institute for Türkiye and the Middle East, culminating in a thesis on The Loss of Organisational Characteristics by the Elected Bodies of Local Governments. He has also co-authored two books: “Annotated and Jurisprudential Administrative Judicial Procedure Law” and “Investigation, Trial, and Removal of Mayors, Council Members, and Mukhtars”.

He was elected twice as the Vice-President of the Constitutional Court by the Plenary of the Constitutional Court on 12 March 2020 and 5 March 2024, and served as the Presiding Judge of the Second Section between 4 April 2020 and 19 April 2024.

He was elected as the President of the Constitutional Court by the Plenary of the Court on 21 March 2024, assuming his role on 20 April 2024.   

He is married with two children.